Period: August 2000

Partecipants: Ana Zandomeneghi, Axel kaiser

 I met Ana at Buenos Aires airport, she had been to see her family in the south of Brasil. From there we flew to Sucre (Bolivia) via Santa Cruz.

We land at 2800 a.s.l. I feel a little dizzy, mainly for the long trip and the Jet lag. We take, to celebrate our meeting after 2 month we don't see each other, a very nice Hotel situated in an old Colonial building with the rooms located around a beautiful gardened yard.

We stay 2 days in Sucre to acclimatize and rest. This town is very easygoing with it whitewashed 2 storey buildings from the colonial era. This town, once the capital, still retains some important institutions, like the federal court, and has a important university. The church of San Francisco is one of the richest ornated church in whole south America with it magnificent golden altar.

 We buy a lot of food because we don't know what kind of supplies will be available along the route, quite useless as you can find basic supplies in every village. It takes me several hours to prepare the bikes, which came here boxed as they have the S&S coupling system, and the gear.

We start early in the morning. The first 30km are easy mostly downhill down to 2000 a.s.l. Then we have to climb up to the Sierras, this is the plateau that stretches from Bolivia into Peru, delimited by two mountain ranges to the east and to the west.

The climb up to 3200 meters is very hard, almost on top Ana has a flat tire, immediately a pickup stops to ask if we need help and offers us a lift to Betanzos. We accept, mostly because tomorrow is Sunday and we won't miss the Sunday market, which is one of the biggest and most colorful in this area.

The lodging is very basic, we hoped in a shower but we have to wait to arrive to Potosi. We prepare some salad on our own, mainly because the Hotel locked very dirty and we wanted to avoid, if possible, to be sick in this first days. I take always care about food in the first days in foreign countries until my stomach doesn-t adapt.

Next morning, while Ana still sleeps, I go to take some picture of the people arriving from the mountains with their goods. The people are very nice and I take the opportunity to improve my Spanish. When Ana wakes up we go for breakfast on the main Plaza where several vendors have set up their foodstalls. Here we meet a Brazilian nun who lives their for many years.

She tells us a lot about the area. Tourists always think that when they arrive in some out of way place to find the real southamerica not altered by European culture. But we have to keep in mind that even Betanzos, already several hundred years ago, was a stopover point for the Grand Damas of Spain with their load of last fashion clothes from Paris. Furthermore the indigenous culture was completely destroyed while the indios were used as slaves.

Even the characteristic hats of Bolivian Women are a imposition of the Spanish queen Maria Teresa who thought that they looked so cute with it.

Before noon we start for Potosi, we have to climb up to 4100 meters. The road is good and the gradient not steep but soon we start to feel the altitude. At around 3 o- clock we stop for lunch. Instead of dehydrated Chili con Carne I took, by mistake, a sweet fruit gelee. We had not enough water to make another meal and so we ate this disgustingly sweet stuff and went on.

Potosi

We arrive at Potosi only after dark, quite exhausted. But a few minutes rest and we feel fit again, this is characteristic of the high altitude. We have a great dinner with Pique Macho *little pieces of meat with potatoes and some kind of sauce.

Next morning I see at last the famous Cerro ricco de Potosi. More than anything else, this mountain is the symbol of the tragedy of south America. In 200 years a incredible amount of silver was extracted, killing in the process 8 millions of Indios, almost to extinction. And when the indios were scarce they brought in slaves from Africa. This silver changed the whole world allowing Europe to finance the industrial revolution. This was always the fate of the rich South America, the wealth enriched the rest of the world bringing misery to itself.

We took a guided tour of the mines. Silver is scarce now but in the mountains are still a lot of other ores.

The work is hard and dangerous, even if you are not killed by some injury or collapse of the mines your health is constantly threatened by arsenic gasses and silicosis. The miners mostly work in Cooperatives which are composed of several groups of 5-6 people who work together and split the earnings. They earn about 250 $ a month, a very high salary for Bolivia, and have the right to retire when they lost 50% of their pulmonary capacity. Only a few mines use a minimum of security rules, in the most the miners just blaze away the dynamite charges as they like, this costs a lot of lives every year.

We are lucky in our group are only Ana me and a Danish guy travelling with a Overland tour. First we make the obligatory stop at the miners market where we buy some present. In the morning normally you bring them dynamite sticks or Coca leaves, in the afternoon something to drink or to eat. Then we climb up the Cerro with our jeep we go up to 4500 meters, breathing is hard. Than we enter the mine, after 200 meters the miners had created a little museum where is also the 'TIO', means uncle, that's how the call the demon of the mines, every morning they stop here to make some offer for good luck. Ana had already enough and waits outside and we go on, it becomes hotter and sticky with every pace. Sometimes there is some suffocating smell, which is Arsenic. Also the Danish guy stops when we start to climb down into the lower levels. It's really hard going, we have to climb and crawl trough little holes to reach the lowest level, from time to time we hear rumbling noises, which are dynamite blasts in adjacent mines. At the lowest level the temperature is 45° combined with the thin air and the gas smells make life miserable, during the Spanish dominion the slaves stayed down for 3 month at a time!

Climbing up is even more dangerous, my guide shoes me the ladders they use regularly, wooden, rotten ladders bound together by ropes. Also I'm happy when we come out again.

Later we visit 'La Casa Real della Moneda' now this mint is a museum. Here I meet an Italian group which I already met in Mongolia and Tibet, world is getting small.

Next morning we start early, after having repaired my pedal cage (the thing which helds your foot on place on the pedal) this broke like glass in the very cold air, a few kilometers and it brokes again. From here until the Atacama dessert it's all gravelroad ranging from OK to horrible.

The day is very challenging as we have several passes to climb and have such a strong headwind that, sometimes, we have to push also when it's even. We make only 45 Km before we decide to stop and set up the tend, thats our only night in tend as we always found some better place to stay. Camping is not great fun in this dusty and windy environment. The stars are incredible, you can see them on the picture even if I used 1/60 second and flash. Its very cold, around -18° all our water is frozen, but its very bearable because the wind has ceased and the air is very dry.

Next day it's the same story: wind and passes. After another 50 km we decide to take a lift on a bus who carries us along for about 100km to Pulacayo. This was once a big mining town with 22000 people, today the mines are exhausted and only 200 people remain. We sleep in a big hotel with over hundred rooms but are the only guests. We have a good dinner together with the owners family. The children accompany us next morning to visit the town, which, in a useless attempt to attract tourists, have set up an open air museum of old steam locomotives. In the picture you see Ana in the first locomotive brought to South America, a miniature version build especially to go into the mines.

Ujuni

We have only 35 km today so we take it easy and enjoy the incredible view we have on the Salar de Ujuni, the biggest saltlake in the world.

Ujuni was created during the war with Chile as transitpoint for the troops, today its serves the same purpose for the tourists. Its a dirty but easygoing town with some good Restaurant, for lunch we have a good Pizza together with an Italian couple we met. There isn't really much to do here beside another railmuseum, which is worse than the one in Palace.

The Salar

Next morning we head to the salar, we want to cross it to reach Liica a little town near the chilenean border, away from the usual tourist circuit. We have food and water for three days even if we count in reaching Liica in two. Its about 200 km perfectly even. The first impression is cold!. On the saltlake the temperature drops suddenly to 3-4° even if its already 11 o'clock. That's because the white salt reflects all the sunlight. Near the edge is the Salt Hotel, a hotel entirely built of saltblocks, its charming but expensive for Bolivian standards so we stop only for a cup of tea.

While we cycle on the salt we hear always a characteristic sound of saltcristals crashed by our wheels. Orienting is not so easy as the compasses don't work here because of a rich lithium deposit under the salt. We have to rely on the GPS. All tentatives to reach the lithium failed due to the presence of water under the salt. The water is only a few centimeters under the surface and here and there we see the 'ojos del Sal' the eyes of the lake, this are a kind of caves in the salt eroded by water. In the rainy season the salar is covered by 30-40cm of water to dry out in the winter.

Our Goal for today is the 'Isla del Pescado' this is a real island in a lake of salt an unearthly place. Here we stay for the night by the unofficial owner of this island. Over night Ana gets sick, she sleeps very little. Next morning she is better and refuses to stay another day to rest, tough girl!

The day is very long 90 km to the edge of the salar, luckily we have a light tailwind, once arrived there we thought that the most was done, but another 15 km of sand awaited for us, we had to push and carry the bikes a lot. We were lucky as they had opened in these days a government resthouse, after a shower in the public bath, Ana collapses on her bed and sleeps for 14 hours straight. In the meanwhile I go to organize transport for the next day, Alessio, a friend, had been here just 2 month ago by bus and told me that there were no transportation to the border and that the road was entirely of sand.

After a lot of search I hire a pickup who agrees to bring us until 10 km of the border, not closer as his car didn't have the right documents. Next morning we go, we pass several abandoned villages with some churches which seem to came out of a spaghetti western. We cross the salar de Coipasa, another saltlake.

CHILE

At the border we have to wait for the guards to finish their lunch and then we get our passports stamped. They warn us that bad weather is coming. Nonetheless we go, we wanted to reach the nationalpark of ???????. The road is terrible, lots of sand and washboard pattern, so after only 15 km, which took us over 2 hours we have to backtrack and sleep at the border. We have to rent a room in n a private house as their is no lodging.

Next day we change our plans and stick to the mainroad, its a typical Andean landscape. He we reach the highest point on our trip, reached by bike at least, 5100 meters

From her its, almost all downhill for 100 km, as we enter the Atacama dessert the landscape becomes very barren, I never saw such a lifeless country, not a single plant till the horizon.

At last, by dark, we reach the Pan-American Highway, we did 150 km today. The first warm shower and real meal for 6 days.Along the panamerican we stop to visit a few of the nitrates ghosttowns.

Real cities built around the nitrate treatment plant, they were gradually abandoned with the advent of synthetic nitrates. First this rich territory belonged to Bolivia who lost it at the beginning of the last century in the war with Chile along with its seaports. Even if Chile has granted freetransit rights to Bolivia, disputes about this area has never subsided. Also because here is the biggest Coppermine in the world which gives Chile 40 % of its revenues.

We have a last descent of 1500 meters down to the sea level and Iqiuque where we rest for a few days, Biking leisurely along the coast.

We make an excursion of a few days to San Pedro de Atacama, which is close to the Bolivian border to visit the famous turquoise lake on the Bolivian side. Again we go up to 5300 meters, even at noon its -20° C. This mineral rich lakes never freeze thanks to some thermal springs which allow also the living of big colonies of Flamingos.

Unfortunately its time now to head to Santiago for the return flight.

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